Chapter Nineteen.
The Spirits of the Bells.
Heart-sore and spirit-weary,
Life blank, and future dreary,
Mournfully I gazed upon my fire’s golden glow,
Pondering on idle errors,
Writhing under conscience terrors,
Gloomily I murmured, with my spirits faint and low.
I had drained the golden measure,
Sipped the sweets of so-called pleasure,
Seeing in the future but a time for newer joy;
Now I found their luscious cloying,
Ev’ry hope and peace destroying,
Golden visions, brightest fancies - bitter, base alloy.
Riches, comfort spoke then vainly,
To a brain thus tinged insanely,
Wildly throbbing, aching, teeming,
Fancy-filled with hideous dreaming,
Speaking of an aimless life, a life without a goal:
While as if to chide my murmur,
Came a voice which cried, “Be firmer,
Would’st be like the beasts that perish? Think thou of thy soul.”
Starting from my chair and trembling,
Vainly to my heart dissembling,
’Twas an idle fancy that had seemed to strike my ear;
Still the words came stealing round me,
Horror in its chains had bound me;
Dripping from my aching brow, were beads of deepest fear.
Hurrying to my moonlit casement,
Throwing up the sash,
Highest roof to lowest basement
Seemed to brightly flash,
Glitt’ring white, with Winter’s dressing;
While each crystal was caressing
Purest rays that glanced around it from the moon’s pale light.
Nature slept in sweetest beauty,
Gleaming stars spoke hope and duty:
Calmer grew my aching brow, beneath the heavenly sight.
Christmas-Eve! the Christian’s morrow
Soon would dawn on joy and sorrow,
Spreading cheer and holy pleasure brightly through the land;
Whilst I, lonely, stricken-hearted,
Under bitter mem’ries smarted,
Standing like an outcast, or as one the world had banned.
Sadly to my chair returning,
By my fire still brightly burning,
Battling with the purer rays that through the window gleamed;
Like two spirits floating o’er me,
Vividly rays played before me,
Each to wrap me in its light that on my forehead streamed.
The glowing fire with warm embracing
Told of earthly, sinful racing:
Warmth and pleasure in its looks, but in its touch sharp pain;
While the moonbeams, paler, purer,
Spoke of pleasures, sweeter, surer,
Oft rejected by Earth’s sons for joys that bear a stain.
Suddenly with dread I shivered,
As the air around me quivered,
Laden with the burden of a mighty spirit-tone,
Rolling through the midnight stilly,
Borne upon the night-wind chilly,
Rushing through my chamber, where I sat in dread alone.
“Soul!” it cried, in power pealing,
“Soul!” the cry was through me stealing,
Vibrating through each fibre with a wonder-breeding might.
“Soul!” the voice was deeply roaring;
“Soul!” rang back from roof and flooring,
Booming thro’ the silence of the piercing winter night.
Now came crashing, wildly dashing,
Waves of sound in power splashing,
Ringing, swinging, tearing, scaring,
Shrieking out in words unsparing,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Roaring through my chamber portal,
Borne thro’ window, borne thro’ ceiling
Ever to my sense revealing,
Still the bells these words were pealing,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Till my room seemed filled with bells that rang the self-same strain;
While, above the brazen roaring,
Mightily the first tone pouring,
Boomed out “Soul!” in mighty pow’r, and linked in with the chain.
Then an unseen presence o’er me
Leant, and from my chamber tore me:
Out upon the night-wind I was swept among the sounds,
Whirling on amid the pealing,
Warning to the city dealing
Of the coming morrow, in reverberating rounds.
Still they cried, as from doom’s portal,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Shrieking all around me as I floated with the wind,
Ever borne away and crying,
Every bell-tone swiftly flying
O’er the silent city, to its slumber now consigned.
Hurried round each airy tower,
Writhing with the unseen power
Vainly, for a spirit-chain each struggling limb would bind;
Doomed to hear those words repelling,
Ever on my senses knelling,
Still - a booming hurricane - we wrestled with the wind.
Sweeping o’er the sluggish river,
Where dark piles the waves dissever,
’Neath the bridges, by the shipping,
Sluice-gates, with the waters dripping,
By the rustling, moaning rushes,
Where the tribute-water gushes;
Forced to gaze on ghastly faces,
Where the dread one left his traces,
Faces of the suicide, the murdered floated on,
Whose blue, leaden lips, unclosing,
Shrieked out words, my brain that froze in,
Crying I had stayed my help in hours long passed and gone.
“Hopeless, hopeless!” ever crying,
“Hopeless we are round you dying,
Asking vainly for the aid withheld in selfish grasp;
Hopeless, from the crime that’s breeding,
Ever to new horrors leading,
Horrors, growing, flow’ring, seeding,
Soon to spread a poison round more deadly than the asp.”
Still an unseen presence bound me;
Still the bells were shrieking round me,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Rising, falling, ever calling,
Thought and mem’ry, soul appalling,
Borne away and louder crying,
In the distance softly dying;
Here in gentle murmurs sighing,
Then again far higher flying,
Swiftly o’er the houses hieing;
While around these fear-begetters
Bound me in their brazen fetters.
On I sped with brain on fire,
’Mid the bell-tones, higher, higher,
List’ning to their words upbraiding,
Each with dread my soul new lading.
Now away, the mighty chorus
Swept around a church before us,
In whose yard were paupers lying.
From their graves I heard them crying,
Joining in the words upbraiding,
Loudly piercing, softly fading:
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Cease your murmurs, cease your sorrow,
From our fate a lesson borrow:
Never heeded, lost to pity,
Dying round you through the city.
Leave us to our peaceful sleeping,
Freed from hunger, care, and weeping.”
O’er and o’er the hillocks grassy,
Now away o’er buildings massy:
Ever cries, as from doom’s portal,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Thro’ the wards where pain was shrieking,
Where disease was vengeance wreaking,
Still the sounds were hurrying, crying,
As in emulation trying;
Many a fev’rish slumber breaking;
O’er the lips that knew no slaking.
All were crying, help imploring;
While the bells from roof to flooring,
Still, as from the first beginning,
Still the self-same burden dinning,
Spite of all my writhing, tearing,
Onward still my spirit bearing
Far away in booming sallies,
Rushing thro’ the crowded alleys,
Where grim Want his wings was quiv’ring
O’er the pinched forms, half clad, shiv’ring;
Where disease and death were hov’ring;
Where deep sorrow earth was cov’ring.
Away, again, where life was failing;
Away, again, by orphans wailing;
Thro’ the prison bars now darting,
Where the fettered wretch lay smarting,
Wakened from his sleep, and starting,
He too shrieked in bitter parting
Curses on my aid withholden,
In the glorious hours golden,
Wasted, thrown away in madness—
Hours that might deep sorrow, sadness.
Misery, have chased from numbers,—
Chased the want the earth that cumbers.
Away, away, and faster speeding,
Away, the tones seemed round me pleading
Lessons to my madness reading,
From the scenes I’d lived unheeding.
Still the unseen fetters bound me;
Still the burden floated round me:
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
But the words came softer, lower,
Calmer still, and sweeter, slower,
Till they murmured off in silence on the wintry air;
Save returning, booming, rolling,
Came that one vast warning, tolling
“Soul!” as when at first it called me, sitting in my chair.
Now again from earth rebounding,
Quick and fast, the bells were sounding,
And I sprang from out my seat, with wild and startled look.
’Twas the blest Redeemer’s morning!—
Sunshine brightly Earth adorning,—
And the Christmas jocund peal my brightened casement shook.
Hope has risen clearer, purer,
O’er my life-course firmer, surer,
Since that eve, when gloomily I pondered on my life;
When I heard, as from doom’s portal,
“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”
Booming on my aching brain, with murmurs thickly rife.